THE WELLINGTON COLLEGE.

Evening Post, Volume XVII, Issue 516, 22 May 1879, Page 2

THE WELLINGTON COLLEGE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THB EVENING POST. Sir— ln your lengthy and I must add not very generous article this evening you try to account for the financial difficulties in which the College has recently been involved. Allow me a word or two in reply. You have gone back over a number of years and raked up everything which could tell against the Governors and tho institution. I have no intention of following you through all tha mattors referred to, some of which occurred years before I became a member of the Board. But suppose now your heavy indictment against the Governors were all true, which, however, I do not admit ; but suppose it were. What then ? What good purpose would it serve ? Would it help the College out of its difficulty? Or would it encourage those who arj doing their best to raise it to a higher state of efficiency ? Is that the only way in which the Press can be helpful to us— by laboring to show that we are a lot of inctpables ? Surely there must be some more excellent way ! You refer to an article in the Wangaaui Herald. I have not seen it, but from the gist of it which you give I am quite sure it does not express the views and opinions of the Colonial Treasurei. He is too sensible a man, and too just a man, and too deeply interested in the cause of education to have any sympathy with such views and opinions. You quote — evidently with approbation—the epithet applied to the College as "that wretched institution;" yon make it the text of your indictment, and you labor to show that it has been wretchedly managed, and that it has been a wretched concern from beginning to end ! Now, that is what I call " running down the institution of our city." "It's an ill bird that fouls its own nest." You try to account for the financial difficulties of the College, and yet you have not touched the real difficulty or the causo of difficulty. Why is the College in financial embarrassment? The answer is plain enough. It was dependent on an annual vote of £1600 from the Provincial Treasury. The Provincial Government was swept away, and that vote with it, and nothing has been given instead as a permanent addition to tbe revenue. Toe £1500 formed nearly two-thirds of the revenue of the College, and was essential to its efficient maintenance. In addition to this there was a sum of £300 a year given for three years from the funds of the University to the College as ac affiliated institution. This sum went towards the salary of Professor Kirk, the Lecturer on Science. That grant also ceased, so that within tbe last three years, from causes over which neither the College nor the Governors had any control, the revenue lost £1800 a year. If you sweep away two-thirds of the revenue of any institution, and leave it so. do you wonder it it gets into difficulties ? Ido not. Why should you, in trying to account for the financial embarrassments of the College, hare overlooked that plain fact ? In truth the College cannot be carried on any lenger with efficiency unless the Government or the Legislature do something to put the finances on the same footing as they were three years ago. It is not right, it is not just, that it should be left in such a position. The only institution for the higher education in the capital of the colony has had two-thirds of its revenue swept away by tbe Legislature, and has been left to struggle with difficulties; while similar imtitutions in the South Island are rolling ia wealth, and scarce know what to do with their ample revenues. Is that fair ? Has not the College a strong claim on the Government and the Legislature 1 They swept away the Provincial grant of £1500 a year ; and they are bound in justice to give an equivalent. Certainly it is a pity that an institution for the higher education should have been left dependent on tha annual vote of any Council or Parliament ; but

so it was with us, and the College sow suffers. And all the blame of this is laid at the door of the Governors forsooth ! It is all this their mismanagement ! Now, Mr. Editor, at leatt be just if you cannot be generous. I am. kc, Jambs Patbrbon. Wellington, 20th May, 1870.